Emergency route to fight Covid-19 from the university extension: constructs and effects

Abstract

In 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 as a pandemic, which led States and governments of all nations to adopt measures to confront and contain this disease. From this declaration, extension in universities acquired new connotations and complexities depending on the pandemic phases. This work presents the theoretical and methodological constructs of the extension emergency route of the Universidad Oriente to fight the pandemic, as well as the enhancing factors and their main results. The research is based on mixed methodology, from a dialectical-materialist approach; with the use of different methods such as analysis-synthesis, induction-deduction; as well as the hermeneutic-dialectic; consultation with specialists, documentary analysis and as a methodological procedure, the triangulation of sources and method. The main results are the definition of the lines of action during the pandemic phases, the effective linkage with the social fabric and the use of the diversity of sources of information and communication present in those scenarios, and the development of action protocols for each multi-level inter- and intra-university management.